After a long search for where to spend Christmas in Brazil but still make our way south toward our departing city of Sao Paulo, we chose Parati (pronounced Parachee,) a preserved UNESCO World Heritage colonial town located between Rio and Sao Paulo. It turned out to be a great choice. We took the bus from Rio to Parati and it turned into one of our worst experiences, but we won't bring up the details. We ended up on a later bus and arrived easily enough.

Parati is a beautiful old town that is quite touristy with Brazilians, but has a great vibe and beautiful beaches close by. We rented our first car here on the trip, and survived Christmas away from home. We enjoyed our hotel and the staff was extremely nice, even though the language barrier was hard at times. We found ourselves using Google Translate quite often but it wasn't difficult considering the owners were so nice and thoughtful here

. They decorated the place with a Christmas tree and lights and always had a smile on their faces.

We got in the tiny hire car and just drove. John loved the freedom of being able to go and stop wherever we pleased. We started off by exploring the beaches. We found two separate areas for the next couple of days, and then spent our Christmas eve on a fabulous and very touristy boat cruise which took us to some beautiful spots to snorkel.

We had some great dinners, Thai on our first night and the 24th and Christmas were spent at the same place with great food and live music. We enjoyed walking at night on the cobblestone streets, and for our last day we drove into the jungle to hike to some amazing waterfalls (no camera that day). We loved our time here and can see why so many locals love calling this part of Brazil home.

We left Parati for Sao Paulo, our last city on our tour of South America.